Heretofore in the therapy by blood transfusion, more often than not whole-blood preparations of red blood cell preparations have been used. These preparations, however, inevitably contain the white blood cell antibody and the blood platelet antibody and pose as a problem the possibility of the antibodies giving rise to secondary reactions. As a solution to this problem, the practice of removing of white blood cells and blood platelets from the whole-blood preparations and the red blood cell preparations has been heretofore in vogue. As means for the separation of blood components, specifically for the removal of white blood cells and blood platelets from the whole blood or from the red blood component, there has been proposed an apparatus which is obtained by filling a housing with defatted and bleached Egyptian cotton in uniform density (Japanese Patent Publication NO. SHO 55(1980)-23,805).
When an apparatus of this nature is used, however, the degree with which the removal of white blood cells and blood platelets is attained hinges on he density of packing of the Egyptian cotton and the efficiency of this removal is improved but the speed of passage of blood through aggregate of cotton is lowered and the time required for the treatment is lengthened in proportion as the density of packing is increased. Conversely, the speed of passage of blood is heightened but the efficiency of removal is lowered in proportion as the density of packing is lowered. Thus, the apparatus is hardly practicable.
An object of this invention, therefore, is to provide a novel apparatus for the removal of blood components.
Another object of this invention is to provide an apparatus for the separation of blood components, which permits quick passage of blood under treatment and warrants a reduction in the time for the treatment at no sacrifice of the efficiency of removal of white blood cells and blood platelets.